Men of the Harlem Hellfighters (369th Infantry), some of whom had been awarded the Croix de Guerre by France for their courage under fire, on June 11, 1918.
Record Group 165: Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs
Series: American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs
File Unit: Colored Troops
Image description: A line of Black soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder in a grassy field. They are wearing World War I U.S. Army uniforms and narrow metal helmets.
Transcription:
SUBJECT: 165-WW-127-4 NUMBER EU
165 WW-127 4
Inter. Film Ser. Photographer
Rec'd June 11, 1916 Taken
DESCRIPTION:
NEGRO TROOPS IN FRANCE.
Picture shows a part of the 15th Regt. Inf. N.Y.N.G organized by Col. Haywood, which has been under fire. Two of the men Privates Johnson and Roberts, displayed exceptional courage while under fire and routed a German Raiding party for which the negroes were decorated with the French Croix de Guerre. it will be noticed that the men have taken to the French trench helmet instead of the flatter and broader British style.
James VanDerZee, “Two Soldiers” (Henry johnson, left, and Needham Roberts, right), ca. 1919
Henry Johnson was the first American (of any color) to win the French Croix-de-Guerre. Johnson and Roberts became war heroes during World War I for their bravery during a nighttime raid in France. After the war they were paraded through the streets with the 369th Harlem Hellfighters.
Shortly thereafter, VanDerZee took this double portrait. Though dressed in military uniform, they sit together on a bench like a married couple in an eighteenth-century domestic portrait. Roberts, who bashed in German skulls with the stock of his rifle before losing consciousness, appears the more masculine of the two, his legs crossed in manly fashion and a metal-tipped swagger stick propped against his lap. Johnson, who disemboweled one of the enemy raiders with his bolo knife, folds his arms and demurely crosses his legs. One can’t help noticing reserve or even misgivings on the faces of the two soldiers, a look that seems to pose the question, ‘what in the world are we doing here?’
Surely VanDerZee knew exactly what they were doing there. His self-appointed task was to represent them exactly as he did his more typical, middle-class sitters. He hoped to thwart the thuggish stereotype that white society, and perhaps black society as well, had ready and waiting for black men who fought and killed with their hands.
In 1919 even as Henry Johnson was being applauded by whites for killing Germans, sixty-three of his fellow African Americans were lynched for alleged violence against whites.
Neither Johnson nor Roberts came to a happy end. Johnson went on a lecture tour but was called uppity and ungrateful and soon stopped receiving invitations as a platform speaker. Prevented from his crippling war wounds from returning to his previous employment as a baggage porter, he sank into alcoholism, and in 1929 he died at a VA hospital. Roberts, also crippled by war wounds, lived off earnings from a succession of menial jobs and served time in federal prison for violating the law against wearing an army uniform more than three months after demobilization. In 1949 an eight year old girl in a movie theater complained that he was bothering her, and he was charged with molestation. The next day his neighbor found him and his wife hanged in their home in a double-suicide.
Roberts won national attention for his actions on the night of 13-14 May 1918. That evening Lieutenant Seth MacClinton ordered five men of C Company to a remote listening post sixty yards into the no-man's-land between the French and German forces that faced off along the banks of the Aisne River. Private Roberts, seventeen years old, and Private Henry Johnson were on guard duty as the other soldiers slept. At approximately 2:30 A.M., Roberts heard advancing German soldiers cutting through barbed wire. He called for backup, triggering the German attack. Blasts from German grenades soon threw him against the dugout walls, leaving him unable to stand, although he did launch at least one grenade from his wounded position. Two Germans attempted to take Roberts prisoner until his comrade Johnson eventually fought off the enemy soldiers.
Learn more about Needham Roberts from the African American Studies Center. We’ll be bringing you biographies of forgotten heroes from the First World War along with other information during the centenary year.
Image: Part of the 15th Regiment Infantry New York National Guard organized by Colonel Haywood, which has been under fire. Two of the men, Privates Johnson and Roberts, displayed exceptional courage while under fire and routed a German raiding party. By International Film Service, Photographer (NARA record: 544230). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
A noo artikle has dunben rote ahn WWW.GITERDONENEWS.COM CALT
Pentagon Considers Medal Of Honor For Black Soldier Who Singlehandedly Fought Off Dozens Of Germans In World War I
Public Domane See Also An Army sergeent who singlehan'edlee fouite off roughlee acoupla duzen Germun soljers an' savet a comrade durin Worl War I neerly 100 yeers ago is bein cunsidderd fer t'Medal o'Honer by Defents Secretree Chuck Hagel, T' Associatid Press...
On May 15, 1918, the courage and bravery of African-American soldiers resounded throughout Europe and around the world, by the actions of two black soldiers. Badly wounded by enemy German guns, Privates Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts, of the 369th Harlem Hellfighters Regiment, were manning a two-man outpost when a German patrol of more than 20 soldiers attached with rifles, bayonets and grenades arrived. Greatly outnumbered and out of ammo, both men used their rifles as clubs to subdue their attackers, killing or wounding 20 enemy Germans.
For their heroism, Johnson and Roberts became the first Americans to win the prestigious Croix de Guerre. An honor made more unusual since American and British military commanders rejected the African-American combat regiment. Only France would accept the African-American combat solders within its ranks. The soldiers were issued French equipment and uniforms, and given basic schooling and training in French language and military tactics.
One of the war’s most highly decorated units, the 369th Regiment spent 191 days in combat—longer than any other American unit. For their service, the French gave the 369th Regiment the honor of being the advance guard of Allied troops in the triumphal march to the Rhine on November 17, 1918. The Americans refused to allow any black soldiers to march with other Allied soldiers—including colonial African troops—in the victory parade up the Champs-Élysées on Bastille Day in 1919.
Returning to America in February 1919, the heroic 369th were not to be denied the honor of being welcomed heroes. Crowds thronged New York City's Fifth Avenue as the 369th marched north to Harlem, to the music of its regimental jazz bandleader, James Reese Europe.
In 1996, 78 years after he'd received France’s highest military honor for bravery, Needham Roberts was posthumously awarded the United States Army's Distinguished Service Cross, this nation’s second highest military decoration for bravery.
Henry Johnson’s wounds left him permanently disabled and unable to return to his former civil job. He died in 1929 and buried in Arlington Cemetery, without recognition of his war service by the United States. In 1992, Johnson’s son, Herman, along with New York Governor George Pataki, placed a memorial wreath on his father’s grave.
By Christopher Moore, Curator and Special Projects Coordinator, Schomburg Center
